A Trip and a Flight
by BrightBlueSkies
Summary: Inspector Gadget meets Carmen Sandiego. She thinks he's pretty cute and he has no idea what is going on at all. ... I don't know why I wrote this pls don't hate me.


**do me a favor and don't read this strange ship I came up with at three AM.**

* * *

 _Enable/Wake/Awareness/Hearing/Taste/Touch/WkP#265.$%-!_

He felt heavy, which was normal, yet very strange because that that was not the thought he usually thought when he woke up.

He usually thought-

 _'Oh! Let's make breakfast!'_

Or

 _'Time for work!'_

Or even

 _'Let's get Penny to School on time by flying there!'_

He was also not usually tied up, but that could be investigated later.

When he woke up heavy, that usually meant he had fallen asleep during a recharge session- or had been on the job and his month long battery just happened to run out while on the field. He dug through his memory and he could faintly recall a mission to the Himalayas, where there had been odd occurrences of items from a museum simply vanishing. The security cameras had all been hacked, turning to fuzz for a mere second before the item was gone.

That had been the reason he had showed up, but was then sidetracked by an attack by MAD.

A short trip to their snowy headquarters that he didn't _quite_ understand later, and he was swarmed. Unlike the other base he'd been in from MAD, this one seemed to have no end to the amount of soldiers it held inside. They surrounded him on all sides, and, loathe as he is to admit, he needed to escape. He was outnumbered and unprepared, and even his 'amazing' skills would likely do little to help.

So he go-go got the heck out there as fast as he could.

Which was, if he was being honest with himself, quite the amazing escape. He flew above bullets and lasers and was _almost_ to a point where he was far enough and high enough from the mountain that the henchmen couldn't aim or follow. But, unfortunately, he had most likely forgotten to recharge himself recently, and only noticed the danger when an insistent beeping told him he had only 10% power left. When he had only 10% power, he automatically shut down.

He had most likely dropped fifty feet down into fresh snow, where the he was then found and captured by MAD.

"Uh oh." He said intelligently.

That would explain why he was tied up, albeit in easily breakable flimsy rope.

"Wonder why they powered me back on again, though..." He asked nobody in particular.

A woman's laugh graced his ears.

"Yes, why did they do that?"

His head snapped towards the voice. His sight wasn't going to be functional until he was at least at 15% power, and all he could see were activating sequences that ran across his vision, bright red yet indecipherable.

"Who are you?!" He immediately asked. "These ropes can't hold me! Do you know who you're dealing with you MAD fiend?!"

"Fiend? And here I was hoping to be friends." She said. "Y'know... since I saved your life and all."

That made the inspector pause.

"Whay am I tied up then?" He asked. She laughed again, her voice like bells.

"I don't know much about cyborgs, Gadget, but you seemed a little dead. So I decided to charge you. You're tied up so you don't fall over."

"Oh."

He heard heels strike a wooden floor before he felt a strong hand reach behind his head and adjusted the thick wire attatched. Immediately he jolted as the flow of electricity increased dramatically.

"There. That should hurry things along."

The faint beeping in his head now indicated that he was now at least at 13%, and that number was quickly rising.

 _Enable/Movment/WkP 299%$*?. &_

"So... Where are we, mysterious savior? And I can stand so I'm going to tear these bonds now." He said, gently pulling his hands apart, snapping the ropes.

"You really can't see, can you? Well. I'm not going to tell you. You need to guess, mr. Inspector." She said, a faint trace of giddiness in her voice.

He was quiet for a moment, listening intently. There was a rush of wind, a strong chill in the air that was scared away by an intense warmth to his right, the floor beneath him groaning as he simply stood there. There was a smell too, that of lighter fluid and soot. But there was also the scent of heavy perfume in the air, mingling strangely with the fresh air. Like lilacs and mystery and adventure and cunning all rolled into one.

"The zoo. I'm certain."

And she laughed. Loud and musical, a smoothness that made the man want to melt where he stood.

"You're not even close." She said, her voice still full of mirth.

"Ah, what?! Darn." He said, genuinely stumped. Where on earth could they be?

"Would you like a _hint,_ Inspector?" She asked.

"No no, I've got this. Just lemme think..."

He focused back on the sounds around him. If he listened very very carefully, he could hear birds chirping from what sounded like miles below him. The faint hum from the machine behind hik, where he was probably drawing power from. The rustle of clothes, fluttering in the breeze. The patient hum from the woman who saved him.

"A facotry." He said at last. She laughed again.

"What kind of factory?" She asked.

"A candy factory. At least I hope so, that's a pretty great place to be."

"Wrong again. Are you sure you don't need a hint?"

"I'm certain! I'm certain!" He said. Going back into silence. A beep echoed in his mind. _14%_.

"Uhhmmm... Hmmm. Y'know, this is pretty tricky. Even for me." He admitted, which earned him another lovely laugh.

"You said you were certain." She said teasingly.

"I'm... With a lovely lady?" He said at last. "Presumably. You might be a man with a very nice voice."

She chuckled this time.

"You're not wrong there." She said, a smile in her tone.

Gadget had barely met this woman and already he liked her. She gave off an air of mystery and fun, of cleverness and lilac. He hadn't even seen her face yet!

"Hey, I never got your name-"

"We're landing now, brace yourself." She said calmly. They were in the air?!

"-wait, we're landing?"

The floor protested with concerning creaking when it hit snowy ground. The woman walked towards the warm spot to his right and something popped and hissed. The heat dissipated, and something large began to flutter down. A light snowfall began to coat his shoulders, and he heard the woman walk up to him. She grabbed him by his tie and pulled him forward.

"I have a riddle, before I go." She said calmly.

"A riddle?" He echoed.

"What does the Queen of Thieves give to an inspector? What does she steal?" She asked, breath warm against his ear.

"Um..."

"A kiss." She whispered, pecking his lips.

 _15%. Enable/Vision/WkP124#%.*_

He was met with peicing, beautiful eyes for the briefest moment before the woman was suddenly gone. She quickly pressed a button on a backpack she was wearing and all he saw of her then was a receding red speck flying off into the sky.

Inspector Gadget was completely flabbergasted.

He remained completely flabbergasted even Chief Quimby rushed up and declared him a hero for finding all the missing stolen artifacts from the museum, which were packed away neatly into a box in the basket of a _hot air balloon,_ of all places. The machine that had been feeding him power had simply vanished, he didn't know how and he wasn't thinking about it. He remained flabbergasted even as Quimby started to panic because _'Gadget! You're only at 15%! We need to get you somewhere else right now-'_

And he was even more flabbergasted when he came home early to find he had cherry red lipstick on his lips.

He quickly washed it off before going to go check on Penny. She was in the living room, working on schoolwork, giving him concerned looks every now and then because Uncle Gadget looked like he'd seen a ghost.

It was only as he was going to bed that he found a wrinkled note in his pocket.

'You're an entertaining one, I'll admit, Inspector Gadget. Make me smile like that again and I might have to take more than a kiss next time. Until we meet again,

 _~Cameron Sandiego'_


End file.
